Data communications represents one of the most rapidly evolving technologies in widespread use today. Data communications and data processing has become important to virtually every segment of the nation's economy. The demand for efficient and reliable data transmission systems has increased the requirement for the control of errors to enable the reliable reproduction of data.
Information needs to be reliably transmitted and received. This holds true for data communications as well as voice communications. Wireless transmission systems transmit data from a transmitter to a receiver through a communications channel. The communications channel is typically an over-the-air, RF transmission. Examples include cellular telephony applications, two way radio communications, wireless Ethernet, and the like. Transmission conditions, that is, the degree to which RF signals are distorted by various conditions of the communications channel (e.g., weather, multi-path interference, multiple transmitter interference, etc.) are often problematic. A primary measure of the effectiveness of a wireless communications system is its reliability and performance irrespective of transmission conditions. Reliable transmission should be ensured even in the presence of significant interference, noise, distortion, or other problems with the communications channel.
One method for ensuring reliable transmission is to utilize efficient error control and correction techniques (ECC). Modern ECC processes are primarily implemented through error correction code schemes. Error control coding as implemented between a transmitting device and a receiving device incorporates information into a transmitted digital data stream (e.g., a signal) that allows the receiver to find and correct errors occurring in transmission and/or storage. Since such coding detects or corrects errors incurred in the communication, it is often referred to as channel coding. The transmitting side of the error-control coding adds redundant bits or symbols to the original signal sequence and the receiving side uses these bits or symbols to detect and/or correct any errors that occurred during transmission. In general the more redundant bits added to the transmitted sequence the more errors that can be detected and more redundancy is required for detection and correction than for detection alone. However, there exists several practical limits to the degree to which an efficient ECC scheme can compensate for problems with the communications channel.
Another method for ensuring reliable transmission is the use of sophisticated noise cancellation and/or filtering processes. Many of these processes utilize sophisticated encoding schemes to enhance the receiver's ability to filter out the effects of noise within the communications channel. One increasingly popular such process is CDMA, or Code Division Multiple Access. CDMA (or spread spectrum) is the general description for several digital wireless transmission methods in which signals are encoded using a pseudo-random sequence prior to transmission through the channel by the transmitter. This pseudo-random sequence is also known to the receiver. The receiver uses the pseudo random sequence to decode the received signal. The pseudo-random sequence encoding has the effect of spreading signal energy across a frequency spectrum of the communications channel. CDMA is one of several such “spread spectrum” techniques. CDMA uses unique spreading codes (e.g., the pseudo random sequences) to spread the base-band data before transmission. The receiver then uses a correlator to de-spread the desired signal, which is passed through a narrow bandpass filter. Unwanted signals, e.g., noise, will not be de-spread and will not pass through the filter, thus canceling their effects.
Because of its resistance to noise and other types of unwanted signals, prior art CDMA communications technologies have become widely used in cellular telephone applications. CDMA based cellular transmission covers a series of “cells” provided to a communications to subscribing users. A cell is the geographic area encompassing the signal range from one base station (a site containing a radio transmitter/receiver and network communication equipment). Wireless transmission networks are comprised of many overlapping cell sites to efficiently use radio spectrum for wireless transmissions.
However, even the more sophisticated prior art CDMA based cellular telephone systems are susceptible to signal noise and other forms of unwanted interference. For example, although the prior art CDMA strategy of spreading signal energy across a frequency band can effectively suppress many types of noise and interference, spreading signal energy across a wide frequency spectrum subjects that signal to a greater degree of interference from sources found within that spectrum. This problem is even more pronounced in those cases where the interference sources transmit a much greater amount of energy into a frequency spectrum in comparison to the desired signal.
One solution to this problem involves the use of notch filters to cancel out the known sources of interference (e.g., radio stations, telephone transmitters, etc.) within a given frequency band. Unfortunately, the major drawback to the solution is the fact that it can be virtually impossible to accurately assess and quantify the many different sources of interference within a crowded frequency band. The characteristics of the interfering signals vary significantly with the transmission conditions (e.g., transmitter power, multipath effects, fading, atmospheric bouncing, etc.), and the aggregate effect of the interference sources results in a significantly decreased transmission range and/or transmission data rate. Thus, even with a very robust and advanced ECC technique, noise, distortion, and interference within the communications channel can significantly impair even very sophisticated spread spectrum types of communications systems.
Thus what is required is a solution for implementing reliable and robust wireless communication in the presence of noise, distortion, and interference. What is required is a solution that can effectively cancel the effects of noise, distortion, and interference within a communications channel, and thereby increase the effective transmission range and transmission data rate of a wireless communication system. The present invention provides a novel solution to the above requirements.